Denis,David
Ran across a diagram in a selection of Popper's work under a section called "
The mind-body problem" which may help shed some light on the problem of
language straddling MoQ's levels. It details 4 levels of functional
development of language and indicates where the separation occurs between man
and animals. It may also help demarcate the level split although viewing the
levels as absolutely discreet will lead to SOM problems in the magnitude of 4
to the fourth power.
Functions Values
---------- --------
4 Argumentative validity Man
invalidity
***************
3 Descriptive falsity
___________________________
perhaps truth
bees ---------------
______ 2 Signaling efficiency
animals inefficiency
---------------
plants 1 Expressive revealing
not revealing
----------------
This is based on the work of Karl Burler who was Popper's teacher at some
point in time and was published in 1977. How it fares as accepted linguistics
theory I haven't a clue. It indicates that animal language development perhaps
gets up to some level of descriptive function. If we were to overlay the MoQ
levels , these levels would range from somewhere in the biological into the
intellectual. Now if one were for convenience sake assign the emergence of MoQ
intellectual level on the line between 3 and 4 (the * line) would it help to
solve your problems?
David you might read "Against the Sociology of Knowledge" by Popper to see the
position against social level mediation. The theory is not new to philosophy
and I would imagine points discussed there will be relevant to the MoQ and
your argument.
DLT
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